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ground underneath a quagmire, and the owner obliged to
have a small well sunk and the water baled out. This arose,
doubtless, in part, from the natural wetness of the soil,
for which no system of sub-soil drainage is provided, and
which, therefore, cannot be helped ; but in part from one
of those instances of perversity in the management of
the drainage of the neighbouring houses, which brought
it under our cognizance. After a long process of correspondence,
visits, and examinations, it was made out by
the Inspector, that No. 13, Grafton Street used to drain
through No. 14, and both through No. 15, into the sewer
in Bond Street; but that alterations had been made some
years since, which raised the level of the outfall: hence
the drainage of No. 13 was impeded; part of the refuse
water, indeed, was conveyed by a raised pipe, but for the
remainder there was no outlet whatever. In fact, the
drain by which it once passed into No. 14 was bricked
up; and it was turned into an old well in the middle
of the kitchen, which was once probably the pump-well.
Hence, part of the percolation into the wine-merchant's
cellar.
To have caused these houses to be properly and
statutably drained, would have been a work of immense
expense and litigation; therefore, under Mr. Grant's
direction, a means was devised of removing all the refuse
water by the existing channel, except the rain water
which falls in the back area, for which no outfall could be
found; and which therefore is received into a small well,
and got rid of by pumping from time to time.
Brook Street, No. 34, the house of an eminent physician,
would require a volume to describe all the suffering
it has inflicted on the unhappy residents, through a